Pulling Pigtails
by sp8isgr8
Summary: Highschool AU: Sam and Cas are best friends, have been since they were four. They know everything about eachother- except the fact that Sam has a crush on Cas' older brother, Gabriel.


Sam was four years old and new to the neighborhood. He and Dean were sent to the playground to make friends. Dean seemed to have no trouble making friends; he immediately went off to join a group of other six-year-old boys hitting each other with sticks. Sam, however, was much quieter, therefore had more trouble finding someone to play with.

In the end, Sam decided to go sit in the sandbox and build a sand castle. He was getting frustrated, though; building a sand castle with only your hands is hard. He huffed and crossed his arms, glaring down at the sand. When a red shovel suddenly entered his line of sight, he jumped and looked up at the boy holding it.

He looked like he was Sam's age, with dark brown hair and really, really blue eyes. Sam looked at him for another moment before taking the shovel and starting to dig with it. When he noticed the boy was still just standing there, he spoke up.

"Do you wan' help me build a sand castle?"

The boy nodded and sat down, pulling out another shovel- blue, this time. Together, they built the best sand castle Sam had ever seen, complete with a mote and a little stick for a flag. Just as they were putting on the final touches, Sam put his shovel aside spoke for the first time in almost an hour.

"I'm Sam. Winchester."

The boy tilted his head and blinked a few times before answering "I'm Castiel Novak."

Not knowing what else to say, Sam nodded and went to pick up his shovel again. However, before he could reach it, an older boy snatched it up and ran away.

"Hey! Tha's mine!" Sam immediately got up and started to chase the boy around the park. Sam's little legs were no match for the older boy's, though, and he couldn't catch up. He got tired quickly and plopped down on the ground, pouting. When the boy looked back and noticed Sam wasn't chasing him anymore, he turned and walked towards Sam.

Sam put on his puppy dog eyes, the ones that made Dean hand over the remote control or give him the last bowl of Lucky Charms, and turned them on the boy in front of him.

The boy sighed loudly before sitting down cross-legged across from Sam. "What's your name kid?"

Sam huffed indignantly. "Sam. And 'm not a kid, I'm four years old."

The boy chuckled and held out his shovel, which Sam grabbed quickly, forcing another chuckle out of the boy across from him.

"Well Sammy, I'm Gabriel Novak, and I'm seven. So to me, you are a kid." Gabriel stood up and ruffled Sam's hair before turning and walking away.

"It's Sam, not Sammy." Sam grumbled after him. With one final glare, he turned and headed back to the sandbox with his new friend Castiel, who was still just staring at him.

* * *

Sam stepped back after knocking- three soft one hard, his signature knock- on the door of the Novak household. Unsurprisingly, Gabriel answered the door, sporting his ever-present smirk.

"Hey there, Sammy boy. Here to see little bro?"

Sam rolled his eyes and went to push past Gabriel into the house, but Gabriel stopped him by holding out his arm. Even though Sam had grown a lot since he was four years old, and was now entire heads taller than Gabriel, the older man still had a larger presence to him.

"Oh come on, Sammy. No hello, no 'good morning, beautiful?' How about a hello kiss?" Gabriel puckered his lips and Sam shook his head and ducked under his extended arm.

"You're such a jerk, Gabriel." Sam said, running up the stairs.

He heard Gabriel yell after him, "you love it!"

When he reached the top of the steps, Sam took a deep breath and calmed the fluttering in his stomach that only happened whenever Gabriel was around him. They've just gotten worse since Gabriel had started to flirt endlessly with him. He didn't think anything of it, really, Gabriel did it with everyone. Given, it was a bit more frequent around Sam, but he was nothing special, Gabriel just liked to mess with him the most. Easy target, or whatever.

Once Sam had calmed down sufficiently, he walked into Cas' room. After that day on the playground, they had gotten together for countless playdates and visited each other's houses constantly. In kindergarten, they played together at recess and took their naps next to each other. In elementary school, they sat together at lunch and hung out with the same friends. In middle school, they sat next to each other in all of their classes and passed notes back and forth. Now that they were in high school, they did each other's homework; Cas did Sam's Latin and History homework, Sam did Cas' Math and English homework.

There wasn't a single day out of the week when there wasn't a Winchester at the Novak house, or vice versa. They usually hung out at Cas' house though, much to Cas' chagrin, because whenever they were over Sam's house, Cas would spend most of his time staring at Dean, who persistently stared back. Staying at the Novak's had nothing to do with the fact that Sam could see Gabriel whenever he wanted. Nope, not at all.

"Hey Sam." Cas didn't look up from the book he was studying from, which Sam took advantage of by throwing his Latin notebook at him, causing Cas to squeak girlishly. Sam laughed as Cas grumbled and threw his Math notebook back at him, which Sam easily caught before opening it and getting down to business.

They did their respective homework in comfortable silence before Gabriel called upstairs, letting them know dinner was ready. Gabe was waiting at the bottom of the steps with a shit-eating grin, informing Cas that "I invited your boyfriend over to eat with us. He's in the dining room."

Cas' eyes widened as he tried, and failed, to secretively flatten his hair and straighten his clothes. Sam looked at Gabriel and smiled knowingly at him, receiving a wink in return. If his heart sped up a little bit at that wink, no one had to know.

When they walked into the dining room, Cas hurried ahead to take the open seat next to Dean, leaving two open seats next to each other for Sam and Gabe.

At one point, Gabriel made a crude comment about Dean and Cas, and Sam rolled his eyes and knocked his knee into Gabriel's, pointedly not moving away after the contact. The small touch, and the fact that Gabriel wasn't pushing him off, had made Sam giddy and unfocused for the remainder of dinner.

* * *

One day, when Sam was going into Cas' room after school, he found Cas sitting on the bed looking blessed-out while Dean kneeled between his legs. Sam yelped and hurriedly shut the door, running to Gabriel's room. Once inside, and content with the lack of half-naked brothers and best friends, he flopped face first onto Gabe's bed and groaned.

After a moment, he felt the bed dip slightly. "What's up, kiddo?"

Sam took a deep, calming breath. "Dean and Cas. Found them in Cas' room. I need brain bleach."

His voice was slightly muffled by the mattress, and Gabe chuckled and patted him on the back.

"How about a game of Super Smash Brothers? Nothing like good old-fashioned violence to get your mind off it." Sam sat up just in time to catch the remote that was thrown at him, and put all of his focus into the game, ridding his mind of what he just witnessed.

After Gabriel's fourth comment about how hot Princess Peach was, Sam groaned and threw a pillow at him.

"You're so perverted."

This just caused Gabriel to smirk widely. "You love it."

Sam rolled his eyes and resolutely ignored him.

* * *

After that traumatic event, Sam and Gabe spent a lot more time together. It was necessary, seeing as if Cas and Dean were apart for ten minutes they'd get all sad-puppy and mope until they were together again. So it wasn't unusual to see Sam and Gabe together, whether it be at the ice cream shop, or the candy shop, or anywhere that involves sweet things- Gabe was the one who could drive, so he always picked where they would go.

Gabe still teased him a lot, and kept stealing his things, but it wasn't happening as often now. Unfortunately, all of their time together only strengthened the butterflies that flew around Sam's stomach whenever Gabe talked, and he never stopped talking.

Dean and Cas dubbed Fridays as their "date nights," so Gabe decided that every Friday, he and Sam would have a "shitty-movie night." This meant that Sam would go over the Novak house with a terrible movie of his choice, where Gabriel was waiting with a movie of his own, and whichever got worse reviews online, they would pop into the dvd player and watch.

They were usually old, cheesy horror movies, and they'd laugh at the special effects or the actors' reactions. However, this week, Gabriel found an ancient romantic comedy that got a "1.5 out of 5 stars" according to Google. Sam hated romantic comedies, they were the most boring things in the world, but it was Gabriel, so he sat down with him and watched it anyway.

Half way through the movie, Sam was bored out of his mind and nodding off. He eventually fell asleep when the two main characters dramatically professed their love for each other.

When Sam woke up, he wasn't quite sure where he was. All he knew was the blissful feeling of fingers carding through his hair, and the fact that he was rather warm and comfy. He sighed and settled into a more comfortable position, before hearing a familiar laugh ring out from somewhere above him.

His eyes flew open, and he found himself staring into dancing golden eyes. He sat up quickly, stammering out apologies, before Gabriel shushed him and leaned forward slightly. Sam saw hesitation in the older man's face, something he wasn't used to seeing, and he couldn't figure out why it was there until his brain decided to start working again, and he gasped, eyes widening.

Gabriel's face hardened and he began to move backwards, which is the exact opposite of what Sam wanted. Before he could think too much about it, Sam surged forward and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of Gabe's mouth before pulling back slightly to look at him. Gabriel just sat there, stunned, for a moment, before growling lowly and grabbing Sam's shirt and pulling him forward into another, harsher kiss.

Sam melted into Gabriel and grabbed him by the shoulders to steady himself. Meanwhile, Gabriel was fisting his hands into Sam's hair, alternating between running his fingers through it and tugging on it gently. A particularly hard tug had Sam gasping, and Gabriel took advantage of that by quickly thrusting his tongue into Sam's mouth, swallowing the resulting moan.

After a few moments, they broke apart for air, resting their foreheads together. They stayed like that, breathing in each other's air, until Gabriel spoke, his voice raspy.

"I was wondering when I'd be able to do that."

Sam's heart swelled and he kissed Gabriel again, not knowing what else to do. Gabriel maneuvered them so that they were lying together on the couch, Sam's head tucked under Gabriel's chin despite the height difference. Sam sighed contentedly and snuggled into Gabriel's chest, feeling the chuckle vibrate through his body.

"I knew you would be a snuggler."

Sam smiled, closing his eyes. "You love it."

Gabriel curled a hand around Sam's hip and kissed the top of Sam's head. Sam felt the smile pressed into his hair as Gabriel responded,

"I do."


End file.
